At the age of 14 Toshikata became a pupil of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who gave him the character "toshi" from his own name as the first character of his artist's name. Yoshitoshi was very fond of Toshikata and announced that he would be his artistic successor in due course. In 1887, on Yoshitoshi's recommendation, he became the chief illustrator of the Yamato Shimbun. During the Sino-Japanese war (1894-5) he designed many war-triptychs. In the same period he began designing kuchi-e, working for different publishers. In the eyes of his contemporaries he was a very serious artist, caring deeply for ukiyo-e. He had many pupils, Kaburagi Kiyokata, Hirano Hakuh˘ and Ikeda Sh˘en among them. In 1908 he died at age 42, reputedly from overwork.